


Truce

by greenfairy13



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:59:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenfairy13/pseuds/greenfairy13
Summary: Oswald breaks into Jim's flat while he's about to do something stupid. Questions are asked but not all of them are answered.





	Truce

**Author's Note:**

> So this rather dark plot bunny bit me and I wrote this story quite quickly cause it would't leave my head. Please consider the warning! If attempted suicide triggers you, don't read it.  
> I'd be very grateful for feedback.

Jim sits bolt upright in bed. He's covered in a sheen of sweat, a gift of the ever present alcohol in his system, and shivering under his thin cover. The detective knows he should drink less, shouldn't allow the drug to fog his brain and poison his body. He can stop any time he likes, he tells himself every day for the last couple of years. But it doesn't matter anyway. He's about to be put down soon enough, right?

 

He's freezing and the soaking blanket he wraps tightly around his body doesn't improve his situation at all. Heaving a sigh, he gets up to start the shower running. The sound of metal clattering to the floor gives him pause. He turns around and starts for the kitchen. It's probably just one of Gotham's street cats knocking over something in front of his window (if you want to call that filthy little piece of glass that doesn't let any daylight through la window).

 

When the detective pads groggily into his living room, he's indeed greeted with the sight of an animal. But it's not a cat. It's a flightless, limping bird.

 

Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, infamous ruler of the underworld, the king of hell himself, is down on his one good knee, trying desperately to retrieve his silver cane from under Jim's couch. The kingpin is dressed to kill, but then when isn't he? He's clad in a black velvet frock that gives even his most awkward movements down on his floor some sort of grace.

 

Jim sighs a second time since waking up, turns on the light and snatches the cane before Oswald even has a chance. The gangster freezes in shock. Mouth hanging open he stays down, one knee practically glued to the floor, he stares up at the detective as if he's about to propose.

 

The corner of Jim's mouth twitches at the sight and he's barely holding back the laughter about to escape his throat.

 

“Ji,Jim,” the gangster stutters while trying to regain his composure.

 

“Yes?” Jim asks, arching an eyebrow curiously. Most people would be terrified to find the Penguin in their living room. But Jim isn't most people and not afraid of the former umbrella boy. Not when the boy has had enough reasons and opportunities to kill him and still refused – for whatever reasons. Who knows how the mind of a psychopath works anyway?

 

“Are you going to propose, Oswald? If not, get the hell outta my flat. Know what, get out _especially_ if you wanna propose.”

 

At that, the criminal pulls himself upright, cheeks turning pink. If it's anger or embarrassment, the detective can't tell for sure.

 

“What are you doing here?” Oswald chokes out, voice pitched more than just a tad bit too high.

 

“I live here,” Jim declares sensibly.

 

“I mean what are you doing here _now_? Shouldn't you be working?”

 

And that's just too surreal, a gangster asking him why he's staying at his own place that Jim just can't help it anymore. He hands Oswald back his cane and leans against his couch for support else he'd double over from laughter – literally. Oswald stares at him as if he'd lost his mind: lips pressed into a thin line, head cocked and shoulders straight he's the epitome of haughtiness. Maybe Jim has lost his mind. Maybe he's died a long time ago in Afghanistan and Gotham is his own personal hell. It would make sense, would give an explanation why everything he touches burns to cinder and dust or becomes an abomination of itself.

 

“Jim, are you drunk?” Oswald asks at last.

 

“Wasted,” he replies sourly, when he's regained some breath. “The point still stands: that's my flat and I didn't invite you.”

 

“I won't be long,” the gangster reassures him. “I just need to hide for an hour.”

 

“And you thought my place was perfect?” Jim gapes incredulously at him

 

“It was close. And nobody would look for me _here_.”

 

That makes sense, Jim admits. And he should turn Oswald out on his ass, should leave him at the mercy of whoever is after him, should ask for more details, should act like a cop. He should do a lot of things. Like cleaning up this depressing shithole that he calls home. Should call his mother. Should go out and have a date like a normal person. Should, should, should. Instead he finds himself pouring Oswald a drink. He hasn't got it in him to be alone right now. And Oswald must know that he wouldn't turn him down like that. Else, he would have never thrown himself into Jim's arms when being poisoned with Crane's gas.

 

Jim hasn't been on holidays for four years and he's got 150 hours of overtime. Harvey had been adamant about taking the day off. He had begged him on his knees to let him work, to not let him go home on this Thursday six weeks before Christmas but when he has asked him why he so stubbornly refused to go home, Jim wouldn't answer.

 

Also, it's fitting. Of all people Oswald Cobblepot decided to turn up. He had been the beginning of his doom. Not the reason, it hasn't been the gangsters fault how Jim's life had turned out, but sometimes he wonders if they had never met...?

 

“I assume it's unwise you have another drink in your current state,” the mobster admonishes.

 

“Shut up, Oswald,” he bites back. “If I die of cirrhosis you're free to dance on my grave. Or whatever it is you'd wanna do.” He waves him off while staring at his shattered leg not too subtly.

 

Blissfully, Oswald listens for once. Jim revels in the glorious silence as he downs his drink. “What happened to your leg anyway?” He wants to know, momentarily surprised by his own boldness. You don't ask the Penguin how he earned his name. Enough people have died to take that secret into the grave with them.

 

Unsurprisingly, Oswald doesn't answer. Just gives him a smile that makes his blood run cold in his veins. “To shattered lives and legs, then!” Jim announces cheerfully and judged by the look on Oswald's face, the gangster deeply regrets already coming here. Gordon regards that as a victory.

 

“I wouldn't have thought I'd ever miss the strictly abstinent detective James Gordon,” Cobblepot admits with a roll of his eyes.

 

“I put him in the trunk of a car and shot him.” It should have sounded snarky. Even to his own ears it just sounds sad. Finally, the gangster downs his cheap whiskey too.

 

“Speaking of trunks and shooting people – why didn't you rip my guts out after Galavan?”

 

Oswald stares at him with an unreadable expression. “Are you high, detective Gordon?”

 

The police officer simply shrugs. “High as a bird.” And there's that laughter again. The sound is unpleasant and metallic, too loud and simply obnoxious. Jim's knuckles have turned white, gripping the sofa too tightly.

 

The Penguin limps through the flat. First, he starts for the bathroom, rummages through the cabinets. Jim isn't sure what he's concerned about. Oswald should be celebrating, he's finally at _this_ point. Instead, he limps towards his bedroom and starts looking around there too. Jim is following him, secretly admiring how methodically he goes through his few belongings. In another life, Oswald would have made an excellent cop.

 

The look on the kingpins face is priceless when he's at last holding up a small plastic bottle of pills into Jim's face. It's a mixture of anger, rage, shame and something James can't put his finger on. It's downright ludicrous.

 

“How many of these did you take?” he demands to know in his most intimidating voice, the voice that sets any man in their right mind running. Jim's not in his right mind.

 

“Not enough, obviously,” Jim snaps back. “I can still stand, walk and talk.”

 

“Well, I'm not sure it's wise you keep talking, _old_ _friend_.”

 

“We're not friends,” Jim bites back. “There are no friends in Gotham. There are colleagues, allies, goons, fellas, underlings and partners. No friends in Gotham, Oswald. I told ya to leave, didn't I?”

 

Cobblepot gives a stiff nod at that. “As you wish, Jim,” he says softly. “I'll call the ambulance on my way out. Until then, stay awake. Can't have you dying on me and going to jail for another murder you committed. Also, I can't have you dying on your own accord. After all I've earned myself that prerogative, haven't I?” There's no heat in his words, he isn't teasing, either. 

 

“Just fair,” Jim mutters under his breath and staring Oswald in the eye. The gangster is pale as ashes. But maybe that's just a trick of the light.

 

“Why did you do it, Jim?” The whisper is barely audible, not even in a still flat.

 

Why didn't he do it sooner is the question he ought to ask, the detective thinks. In his eagerness to make the city a better place he tore it apart. He's got two ex fiancees turned crazy, a dead child he never met and a bunch of colleagues who'll be cheering by tomorrow. He's constantly throwing his only friend left in a loop and what for? His boy scout attitude led to Gotham becoming a no man's land. He has never cried. Has never taken a moment to contemplate his actions, not properly. James Gordon had been a freight train until he couldn't carry on any longer. Not even now he takes his time to think his actions through, just acted on impulse.

 

“Today would have been Christine's birthday,” Jim shares at last. “Well, if she would have ever been born,” he adds. The detective doesn't cry. He never cried about what could have been: picket fences, a nice house, children and a beautiful wife. He just kept building a city that tore him to the ground in reward for his efforts.

 

“You wanted to know why I never tore your guts after Galavan, right?” Oswald says in lieu of an answer. “You just answered your question, I suppose.”

 

“Ah. I suppose Gotham gets us all in the end.”

 

“It wasn't supposed to get _you_ ,” the gangster shots back, blues eyes turning as stormy as the river that has failed so many times to drown him.

 

“I'm not a hero, Oswald,” he scoffs.

 

“You're more than this city deserves,” Oswald yells back, losing his temper. He's breathing heavily, eyes flashing like sapphires. He truly looks like the king of the underworld, a being from old greek myths. Jim has never admired how beautiful the deadly creature truly is.

 

His statement is so very earnest, Jim doesn't know what to say. Just stands there, breathing. They are bound together, him and Oswald, for better or worse. And for one insane moment, they are truly one: the criminal and the detective, light and darkness meeting at dawn. Yes, in another life they would have been friends, Jim thinks.

 

Reaching under his bed, Jim pulls out a rifle and pushes it into Oswald's hands. “I'll be alright,” he tells the flabbergasted gangster. “And you'll be safer to go out with that, _old friend_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
